Basic Question

[UtahChic]

This may be a dumb question but I am new to owning an AS, and I am illiterate when it comes to electrical stuff.

I want to use some of my regular appliances in my AS, a toaster oven, rice cooker, blender...

How can I operate these appliances in my AS?

[beckybillrae]

You plug in your AS to the campground power & then you plug in your appliances & they'll work! If you don't have power, sadly, they won't work unless you have a generator.

[Diablito1179]

A decent $50 power inverter from autozone will do fine for the low AMP stuff "tv, dvd player, coffee maker, toaster." And it plugs right into the 12v plugs. I use one alot and really can't see ever not having one.

[beckybillrae]

Originally Posted by Diablito1179

A decent $50 power inverter from autozone will do fine for the low AMP stuff "tv, dvd player, coffee maker, toaster." And it plugs right into the 12v plugs. I use one alot and really can't see ever not having one.

You are right, there! I'm never without power when I camp, so I completely forgot about an inverter.

[sempi2]

Unless you have electric hookups you will need a generator to run anything you plug in. But those things may work off an invertor also, but since we don't have a onboard invertor I may be wrong.
Congrats on being a new AS owner.
And welcome to the forum.
PS did you get any info on the AS? We got a all the manuels for the trailer and all the appliances. That really helped us with many of our questions. Good luck.

[barbara4rb]

Campground power makes life easy.

Dry camping--solar panels keep the batteries charged, as long it is sunny, and your batteries are in good shape. The panels give you all the juice you need for fans, battery charging, etc. The inverter can then give you alot of things, as mentioned. Honda generator gives you more juice for higher AMP stuff except running your roof AC. As I understand it, this requires two generators. (Others can speak directly to this????) We're are in the middle of changing all lightbulbs out for LEDs to save power too.

[sempi2]

We have 2 Honda 2000 generators and we can run the AC with those. If we just need to run a coffee pot. toaster or recharge something one will work. We have changed over half of our lights to LEDs and plan on replacing the remaining this next year. They are a little spendy, but from all we have heard they last a long time and use less power.

[dkottum]

An inverter is powered by the trailer batteries. There is not enough battery capacity to run your regular household appliances, and also provide the trailer with its normal dc power needs, such as lights, heater, radio/tv.

You will need a source of external ac power, either from a campground hookup or a portable generator. You will have to size the portable generator according to your needs, which sounds like quite a bit. If you want to run the Airstream air conditioner, plus your appliances, you will need a big generator.

I would leave such things as the rice cooker and toaster oven at home and use the propane range. In other words, learn to adapt your cooking methods to the Airstream equipment, rather than the other way around. That's the easy way.

doug k

[idroba]

Originally Posted by Diablito1179

A decent $50 power inverter from autozone will do fine for the low AMP stuff "tv, dvd player, coffee maker, toaster." And it plugs right into the 12v plugs. I use one alot and really can't see ever not having one.

No, sorry to say, a small $50 inverter will NOT run a coffee maker or toaster. It will run the TV, DVD player and other low wattage stuff. Coffee makers and toasters take from 700 to 1200 watts each, way beyond the capacity of a small inverter that plugs into the 12 volt outlets in your trailer.

[UtahChic]

Thanks for the replies everyone! Very helpful!

If I understood correctly...
using appliances only poses a problem when you are not connected to an external power source. So unless I am dry camping I shouldn't have any problems, right?

And it seems there is some debate over using appliances with an inverter...

[dkottum]

No debate about it . . . an inverter will not cut the mustard with kitchen appliances you mentioned, unless its really, really big. Then the batteries won't make it.

doug k

[dkottum]

You could still run into overloads with the circuits provided in your Airstream, with external power. If you need all that stuff, you will need to run a big, high wattage rated extension cord in from the campground power box directly to your appliances.

Think propane for cooking, that's how your trailer is designed. Some have a convection microwave option, which also works well with external power.

doug k

[Skater]

Originally Posted by dkottum

Think propane for cooking, that's how your trailer is designed. Some have a convection microwave option, which also works well with external power.

To be fair, they don't always come with ovens - our trailer doesn't have one, for example. We bought a toaster oven for ours. We haven't tried boondocking with it, though. I suspect we wouldn't be making anything that needed to be toasted or baked on that trip.

[UtahChic]

Thanks again for the advice.

I only plan on having extra appliances on longer road trips so I can eat healthier. I checked and my rice cooker only uses 350 watts. It's tiny and I can steam veggies and not worry about my brown rice burning on the stove. I tried it for the first time last night and the rice was perfect. It keeps the rice warm too so I don't have to coordinate cooking the rice around the rest of the meal.